DR Congo seeks to protect forest

2011-11-04 18:00

Kinshasa - Forest conservation is a major challenge for the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world's second biggest green lung after the Amazon, amid a paucity of energy production and renewable alternatives.

The country's massive tropical forest, four times the size of France, covers some 1.55 million square kilometres, mainly in the north.

It includes most of the Congo basin which is the second-largest oxygen supplier on earth after the Amazon forest.

For the time being this green capital, home of the greatest biodiversity in Africa, remains "relatively intact", according to Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UN's environment programme (Unep), who gave a presentation in Kinshasa this month.

However "the intensification of deforestation in response to a growing energy demand", as well as the spread of slash and burn farming were "alarming signs", he added.

Energy

Only 9% of the 62 million Congolese have access to electricity despite the 100 000MW potential of the Inga dam on the Congo River, underexploited due to a lack of equipment and maintenance.

Therefore people cut down some 400 000ha of forest every year just for their heating and lighting needs, according the Unep.

"Conservation is directly linked to development, because if there's no energy how can you stop the people from going and chopping down the forest for firewood? It's impossible," Environment Minister Jose Endundo said.

He insisted however that "we are evolving toward a green economy", under the aegis of the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (Redd), foreseeing a multiplication of initiatives for reforestation and the use of less polluting energy sources.

At Nsele, in Kinshasa province, a pilot project for "integrated bio-economic" farming has been imported from Ethiopia.

With UN support it, for example, recycles pig urine to produce a biogas for braziers and lamps.

"We have the capacity to stock 50 000m³," said Getachew Tikubet, the Ethiopian behind the project which is also being tested in provinces in the country's east and west.

Around Ibi Village, also in Kinshasa, is another preservation project.

There it is planned to plant a forest of acacia trees, surrounded by manioc, to provide a 4 200ha forest for energy use, at the same time trapping in five years a million tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂).

The World Bank's BioCarbon Fund, along with French enterprise Orbeo, - a joint venture between chemical group Rhodia and Societe Generale bank - have each bought "500 000 tons" of carbon credits to resell to polluters to recompense their greenhouse gas emissions, said the Ibi Village project head Delly Kayuka.

However Kayuka voiced his disappointment at the asking price, at $4 per ton of CO₂.

According to the Unep the Democratic Republic of Congo's reserves of CO₂, estimated at over 27 million tons, could generate up to $900m per year up to 2030.

- AFP